Appeal No. 2000-1182
Application No. 08/957,554
page 7) to create the roughened surface, which forms randomly-
spaced pits.) Ishiharada II teaches that the roughening of
the cladding of a waveguide should be increased along the
length of the waveguide with distance from the light source to
provide uniform luminance along the length of the waveguide.
For reasons we have discussed above, we find that it would
have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to
alter the single degree of roughness in Ishiharada I to a
plurality of degrees of roughness to make the luminance of
Ishiharada I uniform, as taught by Ishiharada II.
Since claims 20 and 21 were argued separately by
appellants, and since the same arguments would apply to the
new ground of rejection, we will treat them individually here.
We disagree with appellants (Brief, page 8) that "there is no
indication that sandblasting is within the scope of ...
[Ishiharada I's] blast treatment." We agree with the examiner
(Answer, page 8) that the skilled artisan would consider
sandblasting as the primary type of blast treatment
contemplated by Ishiharada I. The level of the skilled
artisan should not be underestimated. See In re Sovish, 769
F.2d 738, 743, 226 USPQ 771, 774 (Fed. Cir. 1985). Similarly,
11
Page: Previous 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007